What is this?

This notebook contains a set of analyses for analyzing GOBBluth89’s BoardGameGeek collection. The bulk of the analysis is focused on building a user-specific predictive model to predict the games that the specified user is likely to add to their collection.

By analyzing a user’s collection and training a predictive model, I am able to answer questions such as:

  • What designers/mechanics/genres does a user tend to like or dislike?

  • What older games might they be interested in adding to their collection?

  • What new and upcoming games should they check out?

1 Data

1.1 Outcomes

How many games has GOBBluth89 owned/rated/played?

1.2 Collection

What types of game does GOBBluth89 own? I can look at the most frequent types of categories, mechanics, designers, and artists that appear in a user’s collection.

1.3 Games in Collection

What games does GOBBluth89 currently have in their collection? The following table can be used to examine games the user owns, along with some helpful information for selecting the right game for a game night!

Use the filters above the table to sort/filter based on information about the game, such as year published, recommended player counts, or playing time.

2 Modeling

I’ll now the examine predictive models trained on the user’s collection.

For an individual user, I train a predictive model on their collection in order to predict whether a user owns a game. The outcome, in this case, is binary: does the user have a game listed in their collection or not? This is the setting for training a classification model, where the model aims to learn the probability that a user will add a game to their collection based on its observable features.

How does a model learn what a user is likely to own? The training process is a matter of examining historical games and finding patterns that exist between game features (designers, mechanics, playing time, etc) and games in the user’s collection.

Note: I train models to predict whether a user owns a game based only on information that could be observed about the game at its release: playing time, player count, mechanics, categories, genres, and selected designers, artists, and publishers. I do not make use of BGG community information, such as its average rating or number of user ratings (though I do use a game’s estimated complexity as a feature). This is to ensure the model can predict newly released games and is not dependent on the BGG community to rate them.

2.1 What Predicts a User’s Collection?

A predictive model gives us more than just predictions. We can also ask, what did the model learn from the data? What predicts the outcome? In the case of predicting a boardgame collection, what did the model find to be predictive of games a user owns?

To answer this, I can examine the coefficients from a model logistic regression with ridge regularization (which I will refer to as a penalized logistic regression). Positive values indicate that a feature increases a user’s probability of owning/rating a game, while negative values indicate a feature decreases the probability. To be precise, the coefficients indicate the effect of a particular feature on the log-odds of a user owning a game.

This model examines a wide variety of features of games (506 features, to be exact) and estimates their effect on whether a user owns a game. These estimates are then shrunken towards zero based on a tuning parameter (lambda), where the appropriate value is estimated from the data.

The following visualization shows the path of each feature as it enters the model, with highly influential features tending to enter the model early with large positive or negative effects.

2.2 Partial Effects

This type of model enables me to I can examine the effects of specific features on a user’s collection. For instance, what is a user’s favorite designer? Least favorite mechanic? The following plots indicate specific effects for different kinds of features.

2.3 Feature Importance

In addition to training a logistic regression, I trained another type of model using boosted trees (LightGBM), a flexible nonparametric method that is well suited for prediction.

Which features were most used by this model? Features that are important in predicting a user’s collection will appear towards the top of cover, frequency, and/or gain.

3 Assessment

How well did the model do in predicting the user’s collection?

This section contains a variety of visualizations and metrics for assessing the performance of the model(s). If you’re not particularly interested in predictive modeling, skip down further to the predictions from the model.

3.1 Separation

An easy way to examine the performance of classification model is to view a separation plot.

I plot the predicted probabilities from the model for every game (from resampling) from lowest to highest. We then overlay a blue line for any game that the user does own. A good classifier is one that is able to separate the blue (games owned by the user) from the white (games not owned by the user), with most of the blue occurring at the highest probabilities (right side of the chart).

I can more formally assess how well each model did in resampling by looking at the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (roc_auc). A perfect model would receive a score of 1, while a model that cannot predict the outcome will default to a score of 0.5. The extent to which something is a good score depends on the setting, but generally anything in the .8 to .9 range is very good while the .7 to .8 range is perfectly acceptable.

type wflow_id .metric mean std_err n
resamples glmnet roc_auc 0.922 0.008 5
resamples lightgbm roc_auc 0.869 0.015 5

3.2 Top Games in Training

Another way of looking at what the model learned is to see its predictions on the training set. The models are trained on games published before 2021; of these games, what did the model like for the user?

Top (Older) Games for GOBBluth89
Rankings based on predictive model trained on user's collection using games released through 2021
rank image game description Pr(Own) Own
1 Cosmic Encounter: 42nd Anniversary Edition (2018) Cosmic Encounter 42nd Anniversary Edition welcomes new players to the game of infinite possibilities with a freshly revised rulebook and a beautifully illustrated Quick-start Guide that captures the nostalgia of the original game and makes it easy for anyone to learn. The Quick-start Guide’s comic book style throws readers back to the 1970s, providing vital insight into the core rules of the ga... 0.992 no
2 Unmatched: Little Red Riding Hood vs. Beowulf (2020) In battle, there are no equals. ONCE UPON A TIME, Little Red Riding Hood took her basket of nasty tricks and faced off against the legendary Beowulf in this exciting Unmatched set. "What big eyes you have, Wulfie!" "That’s called 'rage', kid!" Little Red features a clever card-combo mechanism. Matching icons on the cards she plays to the one in her "basket" (discard pile), triggers potent e... 0.987 yes
3 Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume Two (2021) In battle, there are no equals. Unmatched is a highly asymmetrical miniature fighting game for two or four players. Each hero is represented by a unique deck designed to evoke their style and legend. Tactical movement and no-luck combat resolution create a unique play experience that rewards expertise, but just when you've mastered one set, new heroes arrive to provide all new match-ups. Batt... 0.979 yes
4 Star Wars: X-Wing (Second Edition) (2018) X-Wing Second Edition puts you in command of your own squadron of advanced starfighters locked in thrilling, tactical space combat. Following in the footsteps of the first edition, the second edition refines the intuitive and exciting core formula of maneuvering your ships into position by placing a central focus on the visceral thrill of flying starships in the Star Wars galaxy. During a batt... 0.975 yes
5 Star Wars: Rebellion (2016) Star Wars: Rebellion is a board game of epic conflict between the Galactic Empire and Rebel Alliance for two to four players. Experience the Galactic Civil War like never before. In Rebellion, you control the entire Galactic Empire or the fledgling Rebel Alliance. You must command starships, account for troop movements, and rally systems to your cause. Given the differences between the Empire ... 0.949 no
6 Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume One (2019) In battle, there are no equals. Unmatched is a highly asymmetrical miniature fighting game for two or four players. Each hero is represented by a unique deck designed to evoke their style and legend. Tactical movement and no-luck combat resolution create a unique play experience that rewards expertise, but just when you've mastered one set, new heroes arrive to provide all new match-ups. Batt... 0.942 yes
7 Great Western Trail (Second Edition) (2021) America in the 19th century: You are a rancher and repeatedly herd your cattle from Texas to Kansas City, where you send them off by train. This earns you money and victory points. Needless to say, each time you arrive in Kansas City, you want to have your most valuable cattle in tow. However, the "Great Western Trail" not only requires that you keep your herd in good shape, but also that you w... 0.938 no
8 Unmatched: Jurassic Park – InGen vs Raptors (2020) In battle, there are no equals. "They show extreme intelligence, even problem-solving intelligence. Especially the big one." He has hunted many a dangerous predator, but against a pack of raptors, is Robert Muldoon the hunter or the hunted? In Unmatched: Jurassic Park – InGen vs Raptors, these clever girls use their speed and agility to surround their prey, getting stronger when they attack to... 0.934 yes
9 Unmatched: Robin Hood vs. Bigfoot (2019) In battle, there are no equals. Unmatched is a highly asymmetrical miniature fighting game for two or four players. (Note that this set is solely for two players, but it can be combined with other sets, which all serve up to four players.) Each hero is represented by a unique deck designed to evoke their style and legend. Tactical movement and no-luck combat resolution create a unique play exp... 0.934 yes
10 Aftermath (2019) Aftermath is an Adventure Book Game in which players take on the role of small critters struggling to survive and thrive in a big, dangerous world. Humans have mysteriously vanished, and the remnants of civilization are quickly being reclaimed by nature and the animals who still remain. In the game, you play as a misfit band of critters known by their colony as "providers". There's the guinea ... 0.916 no


I’ll plot the top 10 games most likely to be owned by the user in the last 10 years of the training set.

Games highlighted in blue are currently in the user’s collection; games highlighted in light blue are games that the user previously owned.

Top Games by Year for GOBBluth89
Rankings based on predictive model trained on user's collection using games released through 2021
Rank 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
1 A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) Warhammer: Diskwars Star Wars: Empire vs. Rebellion Forbidden Stars Star Wars: Rebellion Civilization: A New Dawn Cosmic Encounter: 42nd Anniversary Edition Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume One Unmatched: Little Red Riding Hood vs. Beowulf Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume Two
2 Mansions of Madness Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game Relic Spyfall Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game – The Force Awakens Core Set Pandemic: Iberia Fallout Star Wars: X-Wing (Second Edition) Unmatched: Robin Hood vs. Bigfoot Unmatched: Jurassic Park – InGen vs Raptors Great Western Trail (Second Edition)
3 Dust Tactics: Revised Core Set Mafia: Vendetta Eldritch Horror Star Wars: Imperial Assault Flick 'em Up! Arkham Horror: The Card Game Star Wars: Destiny – Two-Player Game Concordia Venus Aftermath Unmatched: Cobble & Fog Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Edition)
4 Dungeon Fighter Android: Netrunner A Study in Emerald Pandemic: The Cure Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 Mansions of Madness: Second Edition Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra Unmatched Game System Unmatched: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Bristol 1350
5 Elder Sign Star Wars: The Card Game Room 25 Age of War Runebound (Third Edition) Game of Thrones: The Iron Throne Century: Spice Road Railroad Ink: Blazing Red Edition The Isle of Cats The Pet Cemetery Fangs
6 Operation Cerberus: The Channel Dash Rex: Final Days of an Empire Race! Formula 90 Blue Moon Legends Star Wars: Armada New Angeles Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 Blackout: Hong Kong Tapestry Seven Bridges Bloodborne: The Board Game
7 Tragedy Looper The Hobbit Card Game Fox & Chicken Akrotiri Drakon (Fourth Edition) Agricola (Revised Edition) Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game Shadows: Amsterdam Century: A New World KeyForge: Mass Mutation KeyForge: Dark Tidings
8 Mage Knight Board Game Archipelago Salmon Run Orléans The King Is Dead A Feast for Odin The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 Heroes of Terrinoth Star Wars: Legion – Clone Wars Core Set Migration: Mars Galaxy Trucker (Second Edition)
9 Tinco Dust Warfare: Core Rulebook BANG! The Dice Game AquaSphere Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) Captain Sonar LYNGK Newton The Only Word: the Party Word Game Infinity Gauntlet: A Love Letter Game For the King (and Me)
10 Eminent Domain Winter Tales Παλέρμο: Το Μεγάλο Ξεκαθάρισμα Basari: Das Kartenspiel Love Letter: Adventure Time Love Letter: Premium Edition Santo Domingo Century: Eastern Wonders Tuki Monasterium Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile


The following table shows the model’s predictions for games in the training set.

3.3 Calibration

What do the model’s predicted probabilties mean? Or, put another way, how well calibrated are the model’s predictions?

If the model assigns a probability of 5%, how often does the outcome actually occur? A well calibrated model is one in which the predicted probabilities reflect the probabilities we would observe in the actual data. We can assess the calibration of a model by grouping its predictions into bins and assessing how often we observe the outcome versus how often each model expects to observe the outcome.

A model that is well calibrated will closely follow the dashed line - its expected probabilities match that of the observed probabilities. A model that consistently underestimates the probability of the event will be over this dashed line, be a while a model that overestimates the probability will be under the dashed line.

3.4 Validation

I first assessed the models based on their performance via resampling on the training set.

But how well does my modeling approach do in predicting new games? To test this, I assessed the performance of the model (which was trained on games published through 2021) on games published in 2022-2023.

How well did the model do? The following table shows the model’s predictions for games in the validation set.

As before, I can then assess the performance of the model.

type wflow_id .metric .estimate
valid glmnet mn_log_loss 0.008
valid lightgbm mn_log_loss 0.006
valid glmnet roc_auc 0.923
valid lightgbm roc_auc 0.959

4 Predictions

What new and upcoming games does the model predict for GOBBluth89?

The following table displays the top 15 games published after 2021 with the highest probability of entering the user’s collection.

Top 15 (Newer) Games for GOBBluth89
Rankings based on predictive model trained on user's collection using games released through 2021
rank image game description Pr(Own) Own
1 Unmatched: Jurassic Park – Dr. Sattler vs. T. Rex (2022) In battle, there are no equals. "Dinosaurs eat man… Woman inherits the earth." The greatest predator the world has ever known is closing in on the tenacious Dr. Sattler. Who has the slightest idea what to expect? In Unmatched: Jurassic Park – Dr. Sattler vs. T. Rex, the massive T rex unleashes fearsome attacks and seems unstoppable while Dr. Sattler makes full use of her surroundings and the a... 0.946 yes
2 The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game – Revised Core Set (2022) Sometimes, in order to truly appreciate a tale, one must first go back to its beginning. Grand adventures and strong fellowships are important and wonderful, but the first step of any journey is just as important as the last. With that in mind, it’s time to return to the beginning of one of the most epic adventures of all… With increased contents and some quality-of-life improvements, this new... 0.827 no
3 Unmatched: Brains and Brawn (2023) Unmatched: Brains and Brawn, the fifth and final Unmatched Marvel set, features some of Marvel's hottest heroes: Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, and She-Hulk. Spidey swings around the battlefield, using his spider-sense to keep him safe. Dr. Strange has, well, the best card names in the game: Behold the Seven Suns of Cinnibus! And She-Hulk won't think twice about throwing the book — or whatever heavy ... 0.816 no
4 Star Wars: Jabba's Palace – A Love Letter Game (2022) The lair of Jabba, the Hutt is a place of danger and deception. Players compete using members of the Rebel Alliance and denizens of Jabba’s Palace in a game of rebel bravery and vile deceit. Based on the beloved card game and set in the Star Wars galaxy, Star Wars: Jabba’s Palace - A Love Letter Game retains the simple and fun mechanics of the original as you utilize the talents of iconic char... 0.780 no
5 The 13th Street Crew (2023) The 13th Street Crew is a semi-cooperative social deduction game of criminal strategy. The players are low-ranking members of a large criminal organization headed by the Old Don that for all intents and purposes runs this fair city. The players represent fellow crew members occupying the lowest rung in the organization. Most of the players are ambitious and eager to prove they deserve to adv... 0.606 no
6 The Witcher: Old World (2023) In The Witcher: Old World, you become a witcher — a professional monster slayer — and immerse yourself in the legendary universe of The Witcher franchise. Set years before the saga of Geralt of Rivia, The Witcher: Old World explores a time when monsters roamed the Continent in greater numbers, creating a constant peril that required the attention of expertly trained monster slayers, known as w... 0.550 no
7 Unmatched: Houdini vs. The Genie (2022) Unmatched is a highly asymmetrical miniature fighting game for two or four players. Each hero is represented by a unique deck designed to evoke their style and legend. Tactical movement and no-luck combat resolution create a unique play experience that rewards expertise, but just when you've mastered one set, new heroes arrive to provide all new match-ups. Unmatched: Houdini vs. The Genie adds ... 0.545 no
8 Fit to Print (2023) Fit to Print is a puzzly tile-laying game about breaking news, designed by Peter McPherson and set in a charming woodland world created by Ian O’Toole! Thistleville is the world’s most bustling little town — it’s a challenge to keep up with everything going on, from who took home first prize for their baked goods at the community fair to who has been digging in Mrs. Brambleberry’s carrot patch... 0.497 no
9 Gloomhaven: Second Edition (2024) Gloomhaven: Second Edition is a revised and elevated version of the award-winning core game of Gloomhaven. This is the culmination of everything Isaac Childres and the growing Cephalofair Games team have learned since the initial release of Gloomhaven, including feedback from the community, playtesters, co-designers, and developers. The world, story, and challenging gameplay are all still the ... 0.451 no
10 Unmatched: Redemption Row (2022) Unmatched is a highly asymmetrical miniature fighting game for two or four players. Each hero is represented by a unique deck designed to evoke their style and legend. Tactical movement and no-luck combat resolution create a unique play experience that rewards expertise, but just when you've mastered one set, new heroes arrive to provide all new match-ups. Unmatched: Redemption Row features th... 0.413 no
11 Unmatched: Hell's Kitchen (2022) Unmatched is a highly asymmetrical miniature fighting game for two or four players. Each hero is represented by a unique deck designed to evoke their style and legend. Tactical movement and no-luck combat resolution create a unique play experience that rewards expertise, but just when you've mastered one set, new heroes arrive to provide all new match-ups. Unmatched: Hell's Kitchen features th... 0.413 no
12 Unmatched: Teen Spirit (2023) Unmatched is a highly asymmetrical miniature fighting game for two or four players. Each hero is represented by a unique deck designed to evoke their style and legend. Tactical movement and no-luck combat resolution create a unique play experience that rewards expertise, but just when you've mastered one set, new heroes arrive to provide all new match-ups. Unmatched: Teen Spirit features four ... 0.413 no
13 Unmatched: For King and Country (2023) Unmatched is a highly asymmetrical miniature fighting game for two or four players. Each hero is represented by a unique deck designed to evoke their style and legend. Tactical movement and no-luck combat resolution create a unique play experience that rewards expertise, but just when you've mastered one set, new heroes arrive to provide all new match-ups. Unmatched: For King and Country featu... 0.413 no
14 Bah! Humbug! and the 12 Games of Christmas (2023) Bah! Humbug! and the 12 Games of Christmas is a collection of 13 original holiday card games by 13 designers, reimplementing and expanding Bah! Humbug!: A Twelve Days of Christmas Bluffing Game by Emily Willix into a versatile box of games for 1-12 players. At the heart of the collection is a 78-card "12 days of Christmas" deck featuring Victorian-inspired animal art. The box also contains 34 w... 0.375 no
15 Undaunted: Battle of Britain (2023) The RAF faces the Luftwaffe in this two-player deck-building game of aerial WWII combat. Summer, 1940. The German war machine has rolled through the continent in less than a year, crushing all before it. Britain is all that stands in the way of German victory in Europe. Command the pilots of the battle-tested Luftwaffe who are looking to extinguish all resistance and pave the way to invasion, ... 0.358 no

4.1 Explaining Individual Predictions

Why did the model predict these games?

4.2 Upcoming Games

Finally, I can examine predictions for all newer and upcoming games.